STATISTICA Blogs

 I can definitely relate to the last blog post from my colleague Jennifer Thompson, for I too have a common name for people in my age cohort. I was so tired of having to clarify which Amanda I was that I so desperately wanted to coin the nickname “Shank” for myself. It didn’t catch on for some reason.

You can check out for yourself using Social Security Administration data how common your first name was for US babies born the same year you were. There are 2010 data available as well as yearly data going back to 1880.  Name Voyager is also a fun one to look at for expectant parents and narcissists alike. 

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I took an Intro to Statistics course in the Psychology Department at the University of Oklahoma. I am so happy I took this class, both because it helped me start out on the somewhat squiggly path to working at StatSoft and because it was a great foundation for understanding experimental research, probability, statistical significance, correlation vs. causation, and other concepts that are generally useful for a functioning adult to know.  

We did old-school pencil and paper graphing in that class. Not only because the printer that the department used for printing out statistical output was the next building over and the size of an office, but because it helped us get some hands-on understanding of what types of graphs are used when. 

 

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I love election time. The Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even-numbered years is like Super Bowl Sunday for me. Yes, I do order pizza. Yet, I didn’t watch the Republican Presidential Primary Debate last night. I feel ashamed by this.

In order to redeem myself as a political junkie, I thought I’d post about the debate anyway. I grabbed the transcript from The New York Times, and ran it through a simple STATISTICA Text Miner analysis.  What we’re left with is a visualized gist of what was said last night during the debate.

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As a former Girl Scout and lover of creative graphs, I wholeheartedly approve of this. You know what else I wholeheartedly approve of? Thin Mints.

via I Love Charts, original source Wired Magazine

 

 It’s back-to-school week for many of us. My daughter started a new school.  She loves it, though I’m pretty sure the love is highly correlated with the new playground and her new pink backpack and lunch bag at this point. The world she is growing up in is so much different than the one that anyone in their 20s or older grew up in. Education today is less about going to school or the library and stuffing your head full of information, and more about knowing that the information is out there and ready to be found and used.